Shows I wish you would all bloody well watch (pt 2) - Keen Eddie
Not related to this post, but I'm happy that H50 is back. I love how they had to spend the first five minutes laying out the fact that Steve and Danny are... essentially married. Oh, boys.
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Okay, so I started watching Keen Eddie as part of my quest to work out how much I actually liked Julian Rhind-Tutt (A Touch of Cloth), or whether it was just the ridiculous name and the flappy coat *g*. My conclusion was that I like him quite a lot when he's playing an appealing character, but I don't like him enough to be captivated by his mere presence in a production. Oh well, my dance card was full anyway. But out of the range of things I watched and listened to, I found Keen Eddie to be a minor gem. The show premiered in 2003 and lasted exactly one season. Thirteen episodes. Yet it's a great show, and even in that short run the characters were clearly established with enough care and backstory that they could easily have explored them for several seasons. However, I can see how it might have lacked wide appeal, because in so many ways, it's neither fish nor fowl, which is exactly why I enjoyed it so much.
The first question is - is it an American show, or is it a British show? And the answer is "yes". Technically, it was made for US network television, and the lead is American, but the show itself is set in London, and almost all the rest of the characters are British. This lends it a quirky cross-cultural feel that I've rarely seen in a TV show. Eddie Arlette (Mark Valley) is an NYPD detective who makes a bad error of judgement on a drugs case that turns out to have international ramifications, and is sent to assist Scotland Yard in straightening it out. He's recently broken up with his girlfriend, but brings along his bull terrier, Pete. When he lands in London, he meets his stern new boss, Nathaniel Johnson (Colin Salmon, of which more later), who assigns him a partner, Monty Pippin (Julian Rhind-Tutt, playing pretty much a younger version of his character in A Touch of Cloth). Eddie's already paid rent for a flat, only to find it unexpectedly occupied by Fiona Bickerton (Sienna Miller) - her family thinks she's away at university, but she's really working in a shop and hiding out in her mother's apartment. She and Eddie become reluctant flatmates. The show is very American in feel - the way it's shot, the way it's edited - and it's quite an interesting tell that I've never seen so many Black British background characters in a mainstream British production, not even Luther. (However, I suspect you'd find more people of South Asian descent in a typically British show.)
Also, it might look like a standard cop show, but that's completely misleading as well. For a cop show, it spends an awful lot of time exploring Fiona's job at a cosmetics-type store, and her relationship with her boyfriend Nigel, an earnest British banker. It's obvious, of course, that the show is setting up Eddie and Fiona in the long term, but they have a lot of fighting to get through first. Meanwhile, Monty and his female flat-mate are not married, but spend their spare time going to swingers' clubs, because that way they always both get to pick up. Oookay, then. Eddie's dog is also inordinately attracted to remote controls and Fiona's cat (there's a lot of Pete if you like dogs - I'm not a pet person *g*). There are bizarre recurring characters - for example, two brothers-in-law, one Scottish, one American, who hate each other but can only afford to set up a bar if they go in together. So they split it straight down the middle with a line of Scottish and American flags, and yell at each other across the divide. Then there's Johnson's PA, Carol, who Eddie insists on calling "Miss Moneypenny", and who he fantasises about at least once per episode. Usually this takes the form of imagining her giving him some overblown sexual come-on. As far as investigations go, there are things like a bullying case at a posh private school, a gang who perform robberies in Duran Duran masks, and a man who kidnaps a woman for astrological reasons. So it's comedic cop show meets rom-com, which is a combination that doesn't come along all that often. Lawyer shows, yes. Cop shows, no. Again, I could see why it would be a touch baffling to people not prepared to just take it for what it is.
I only know Mark Valley as "that guy from Boston Legal" (Brad Chase), and he's pretty much your average charming American boy-next-door with good teeth. "Hi, I'm Eddie. How do you like me so far?" But he's genuinely good-hearted and uncomplicated, and it's fun to watch him cope with his new job and his new flatmate in his new country. He and Fiona take up most of the screen time. However, what we see of Monty is also delightful, and he gets a little more focus later in the season - for example, Monty spends an entire episode sulking when Eddie forgets his promise to line up to buy him the new "32-48 Tatio handheld organiser". Which I'm afraid I found hilarious.
In the very first episode, Monty takes Eddie along to his swingers' club, while later on he comes out as a sex addict and goes to one of those 12-step groups. Yes, really. Obviously, this means the slashy vibes are out in force throughout, especially when Monty wakes up on Eddie's shoulder after a stake out and needs to check, "We didn't have sex, did we?"
On top of all of that, there's Colin Salmon as their boss, Superintendent Nathaniel Johnson. Now, he was also in Little Favour (with Benedict Cumberbatch) as the dad, and I quite liked him there, but he couldn't really complete with bloodied Benedict for my attention *g*. Of course, he also wasn't dressed in amazing suits at the time. Note that the promo picture above does him no justice whatsoever - I quickly dubbed him AU Mycroft, which okay, he isn't really, but he has that beautiful diction and supercilious expression down pat. He's also all long legs and impeccably tailored pinstripes and pocket squares, Cuban cigars and bloody afternoon tea served in his office on a trolley, for heaven's sake. With a portrait of the Queen in his outer office, and of course, his own mysterious, attractive PA. I adore all that, and he became a highlight as well. You can just imagine how well he gets on with fast-talking, gum-chewing Eddie - at least to begin with.
If you're interested, almost all the episodes are available in segments on Youtube, starting with the pilot. Don't pay too much attention to the tone in the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode, though, because imo it doesn't really get going until Eddie gets to London. But if you're looking for a sweet, funny, warm-hearted little show to enjoy for a while, I suggest you give it a go! It's not the Second Coming, but a little out of the ordinary, and as many interweb commenters have noted, incredibly underappreciated. One last thing - the shows were broadcast out of production order, and that's why there are episodes with the same name but different numbers, depending on whether the uploader was using broadcast or production order. It really should be watched in production order since a) the relationships make more sense that way and b) Eddie has a habit of collecting matchbooks from every case, and so the number of them pinned on his wall increases by one each episode. Ignore imdb as a guide - use Wikipedia.
***
Okay, so I started watching Keen Eddie as part of my quest to work out how much I actually liked Julian Rhind-Tutt (A Touch of Cloth), or whether it was just the ridiculous name and the flappy coat *g*. My conclusion was that I like him quite a lot when he's playing an appealing character, but I don't like him enough to be captivated by his mere presence in a production. Oh well, my dance card was full anyway. But out of the range of things I watched and listened to, I found Keen Eddie to be a minor gem. The show premiered in 2003 and lasted exactly one season. Thirteen episodes. Yet it's a great show, and even in that short run the characters were clearly established with enough care and backstory that they could easily have explored them for several seasons. However, I can see how it might have lacked wide appeal, because in so many ways, it's neither fish nor fowl, which is exactly why I enjoyed it so much.
The first question is - is it an American show, or is it a British show? And the answer is "yes". Technically, it was made for US network television, and the lead is American, but the show itself is set in London, and almost all the rest of the characters are British. This lends it a quirky cross-cultural feel that I've rarely seen in a TV show. Eddie Arlette (Mark Valley) is an NYPD detective who makes a bad error of judgement on a drugs case that turns out to have international ramifications, and is sent to assist Scotland Yard in straightening it out. He's recently broken up with his girlfriend, but brings along his bull terrier, Pete. When he lands in London, he meets his stern new boss, Nathaniel Johnson (Colin Salmon, of which more later), who assigns him a partner, Monty Pippin (Julian Rhind-Tutt, playing pretty much a younger version of his character in A Touch of Cloth). Eddie's already paid rent for a flat, only to find it unexpectedly occupied by Fiona Bickerton (Sienna Miller) - her family thinks she's away at university, but she's really working in a shop and hiding out in her mother's apartment. She and Eddie become reluctant flatmates. The show is very American in feel - the way it's shot, the way it's edited - and it's quite an interesting tell that I've never seen so many Black British background characters in a mainstream British production, not even Luther. (However, I suspect you'd find more people of South Asian descent in a typically British show.)
Also, it might look like a standard cop show, but that's completely misleading as well. For a cop show, it spends an awful lot of time exploring Fiona's job at a cosmetics-type store, and her relationship with her boyfriend Nigel, an earnest British banker. It's obvious, of course, that the show is setting up Eddie and Fiona in the long term, but they have a lot of fighting to get through first. Meanwhile, Monty and his female flat-mate are not married, but spend their spare time going to swingers' clubs, because that way they always both get to pick up. Oookay, then. Eddie's dog is also inordinately attracted to remote controls and Fiona's cat (there's a lot of Pete if you like dogs - I'm not a pet person *g*). There are bizarre recurring characters - for example, two brothers-in-law, one Scottish, one American, who hate each other but can only afford to set up a bar if they go in together. So they split it straight down the middle with a line of Scottish and American flags, and yell at each other across the divide. Then there's Johnson's PA, Carol, who Eddie insists on calling "Miss Moneypenny", and who he fantasises about at least once per episode. Usually this takes the form of imagining her giving him some overblown sexual come-on. As far as investigations go, there are things like a bullying case at a posh private school, a gang who perform robberies in Duran Duran masks, and a man who kidnaps a woman for astrological reasons. So it's comedic cop show meets rom-com, which is a combination that doesn't come along all that often. Lawyer shows, yes. Cop shows, no. Again, I could see why it would be a touch baffling to people not prepared to just take it for what it is.
I only know Mark Valley as "that guy from Boston Legal" (Brad Chase), and he's pretty much your average charming American boy-next-door with good teeth. "Hi, I'm Eddie. How do you like me so far?" But he's genuinely good-hearted and uncomplicated, and it's fun to watch him cope with his new job and his new flatmate in his new country. He and Fiona take up most of the screen time. However, what we see of Monty is also delightful, and he gets a little more focus later in the season - for example, Monty spends an entire episode sulking when Eddie forgets his promise to line up to buy him the new "32-48 Tatio handheld organiser". Which I'm afraid I found hilarious.
Click to viewIn the very first episode, Monty takes Eddie along to his swingers' club, while later on he comes out as a sex addict and goes to one of those 12-step groups. Yes, really. Obviously, this means the slashy vibes are out in force throughout, especially when Monty wakes up on Eddie's shoulder after a stake out and needs to check, "We didn't have sex, did we?"
On top of all of that, there's Colin Salmon as their boss, Superintendent Nathaniel Johnson. Now, he was also in Little Favour (with Benedict Cumberbatch) as the dad, and I quite liked him there, but he couldn't really complete with bloodied Benedict for my attention *g*. Of course, he also wasn't dressed in amazing suits at the time. Note that the promo picture above does him no justice whatsoever - I quickly dubbed him AU Mycroft, which okay, he isn't really, but he has that beautiful diction and supercilious expression down pat. He's also all long legs and impeccably tailored pinstripes and pocket squares, Cuban cigars and bloody afternoon tea served in his office on a trolley, for heaven's sake. With a portrait of the Queen in his outer office, and of course, his own mysterious, attractive PA. I adore all that, and he became a highlight as well. You can just imagine how well he gets on with fast-talking, gum-chewing Eddie - at least to begin with.
If you're interested, almost all the episodes are available in segments on Youtube, starting with the pilot. Don't pay too much attention to the tone in the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode, though, because imo it doesn't really get going until Eddie gets to London. But if you're looking for a sweet, funny, warm-hearted little show to enjoy for a while, I suggest you give it a go! It's not the Second Coming, but a little out of the ordinary, and as many interweb commenters have noted, incredibly underappreciated. One last thing - the shows were broadcast out of production order, and that's why there are episodes with the same name but different numbers, depending on whether the uploader was using broadcast or production order. It really should be watched in production order since a) the relationships make more sense that way and b) Eddie has a habit of collecting matchbooks from every case, and so the number of them pinned on his wall increases by one each episode. Ignore imdb as a guide - use Wikipedia.